A man performed an express delivery beside the West Gate Freeway near Altona North after his partner couldn’t make it to hospital in time to give birth to their second daughter.
Josh Dean said the couple were on their way to the Royal Women’s Hospital when he pulled over 300 metres from the Millers Road exit about 9.30pm on Saturday after his partner, Courtesy Hove, said she needed to “push now”.
“I just made it off the M80 and had to pull over into the emergency lane when she said, ‘I’m going to have the baby’.
“I had to call triple-0 and tried to get the ambulance to come, but I couldn’t wait for that … the person over the phone had to talk me through it, how to use my hands and how to catch the baby.”
Mr Dean said that despite being nervous, he was able to focus.
“I remained calm … the ambulance arrived 15 minutes after the birth,” he said.
Ms Hove, who was energetically roaming her maternity room 13 hours after the birth, said she felt great.
“It was very quick – one push,” she said. “In the future, we’ll drive past the freeway and say, ‘Look, that’s where you were born’,” Ms Hove said.
The couple, who have a 14-month daughter, Egypt, named the baby Sierra – after the country Sierra Leone – in honour of Ms Hove’s African descent.
